September 23, 2011

The following information on web clients above is obtained from the User agent information supplied to web servers by web browsers. This is an inexact science for a variety of reasons. For a discussion on the shortcomings see Usage share of web browsers.

The most recent data from various sources published during the last six months is summarized in the table below. (All of these sources monitor a substantial number of web sites. Statistics that relate to a single web site are excluded.)

July 18, 2011

Latin America and North America Display Strongest Social Networking Reach Among Women

Comscore reports suggest that Across each global region, Social Networking reached a higher percentage of women online than men. Social Networking’s reach among women is highest in Latin America where it reached 94.1 percent of females online, and in North America where it reached 91.0 percent of females. Europe saw 85.6 percent of its female online population visit a social networking site in May 2010, while in Asia Pacific, where parts of the region still face low broadband penetration and site restrictions, reported a 54.9-percent reach.

July 15, 2011

Overall worldwide shipments were down from 11.7 million units to 9.3 million units, a drop of 20.4 per cent. IDC shows a somewhat less abyssmal drop of 10.1 per cent, primarily because its estimated shipments for the second quarter of 2010 are just over 10 million.

In the US Acer shipped around two million units in the second quarter of 2010, but this fell to just over 1.5 million units in the same period this year, a drop of 22.6 per cent.

Acers market share dropped as a result from 11.3 per cent to 9.3 per cent, putting it in fifth place behind HP and Dell, which made small losses, and Apple and Toshiba, which made reasonable gains of 8.5 per cent and 3.3 per cent, respectively.

IDC showed an even worse fall for Acer in the US market of 25.4 per cent, thanks to a further shipment drop of close to 60,000 units.

The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) market was by far the worst performing for Acer, with shipments dropping from over five million units to just 3.3 million units, a decline of 34.9 per cent. This knocked Acer into second place behind HP, which saw modest growth of 3.6 per cent in this region.

While HP remained the top dog in the industry, with growth of three per cent, Lenovo saw the strongest growth at around 22 per cent.Overall, PC shipments were up 2.3 per cent according to Gartner and 2.6 per cent according to IDC,

July 3, 2011

Android remains the most popular smartphone operating system in the U.S., but its market-share among new purchasers has stalled, research firm Nielsen reports.

According the Nielsen's May survey, 27 percent of cell phone purchasers from March through May bought an Android-powered device, the same percentage from December through February.

Overall, Android devices still are the most popular in the U.S., used by 38 percent of all smartphone users. Apple is No. 2 with 27 percent, with Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS at No. 3 with 21 percent and falling.

New survey figures released by market metrics firm Nielsen show that Google’s Android operating system remained the most popular smartphone platform in the U.S. market, accounting for 38 percent of smartphone users. However, Nielsen also finds that Android’s adoption by new smartphone buyers over the last few months has remained steady at 27 percent, while Apple’s iPhone has shown steady growth, jumping from 10 percent of new acquirers in February to 17 percent in May. In other words, Apple’s iOS is the only smartphone platform to have shown significant growth in recent months.

Nielsen also finds that 55 percent of mobile users who bought a new phone in recent months have purchased a smartphone—meaning 45 percent of new phone sales were so-called feature phones. A year ago, feature phones accounted for two thirds of new mobile phone purchases.As of June 2011 Google said that 500,000 new Android devices were being activated every day—up from 400,000 per day just two months earlier in May 2011 -and more than 100 million devices have been activated. Android hit 300,000 activations per day back in December 2010. In June 28, 2011 500,000 Android devices are now activated by Google each day with growth 4.4 percent per week

Industry watchers are attributing the iPhone’s market expansion largely to the device recently going for sale on Verizon Wireless, breaking AT&T’s multi-year exclusivity deal with Apple for the iPhone. However, it’s also worth noting that AT&T has had a minor hit on its hands offering the now two-year-old iPhone 3GS to mid-range buyers for just $50, on a new two-year contract.